NEW YORK (AP) — Nadine Menendez and her prison-bound husband — former U.S. Sen.
Bob Menendez — were “partners in crime," a prosecutor told a jury Monday as opening statements began in her trial over allegations that the power couple accepted bribes of cash and gold bars. The longtime senator was convicted last year of accepting bribes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from three New Jersey businessmen. Now, a new jury will hear much of the same evidence about Nadine Menendez, 58, after her trial was postponed when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz said Nadine Menendez “did the dirty work” for the 71-year-old New Jersey Democrat, who is scheduled to report to prison in June to begin serving an 11-year sentence.
Defense attorney Barry Coburn told jurors they will have to exonerate Nadine Menendez because there will be an “absolute, utter failure of proof in this case.” The government's characterization was “grossly inaccurate for Nadine Menendez,” and their descriptions of the evidence was “nefarious,” Coburn said. Nadine Menendez has pleaded not guilty to charges that she participated in the bribery scheme that resulted in her husband’s conviction.
Born in Lebanon of Armenian descent, she began dating the senator in early 2018 and soon joined a bribery scheme involving at least one businessman she had known for years separately from her soon-to-be husband, Pomerantz said. The couple met at an IHOP in Uni.
